1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to spare tire carrier racks and more particularly to a simplified, compact rack incorporating an integral screw lift mechanism which may be readily mounted in underbody position to a variety of automotive vehicles such as pickup trucks and the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In an attempt to dispose a spare tire in a hidden but accessible position on a pickup truck, station wagon or like automotive vehicle, without materially affecting the cargo or passenger carrying capability of the vehicle, a number of spare tire carrier racks have been employed in conjunction with mounting means for mounting the racks to the vehicle chassis such that the rack and the spare tire occupies an underbody position during normal vehicle use, while permitting access to the tire by effecting movement of the rack rearwardly to partially or fully expose the spare tire to personnel standing behing the vehicle.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,664,856 to Green and 3,554,415 to Woods disclose spare tire carrier racks which are mounted for sliding movement horizontally on laterally spaced chassis frame members into a retracted position where the tire underlies the floor or bed of the truck body to which the carrier rack is mounted, and during the need for changing tires, the rack is extracted from beneath the vehicle underbody to expose the horizontally positioned tire for direct access and removal. Such devices are not only complicated in design but quite costly, and the spare tire carrier rack must of necessity be supported at a position spaced some distance below the frame member of the pickup truck or like vehicle to permit sliding projection and retraction of the tire carrier rack and the spare tire without contact of the same with portions of the vehicle underbody.
Attempts have been made to mount a spare tire in underbody position at the rear of an automotive vehicle or the like by means of pairs of forward and rear hanger arms pivotably mounted at their upper ends to respective sides of the chassis frame and at their lower ends to the spare tire carrier in which case the tire and its carrier simply swing from a rear projected and lowered position to a forward and raised position in close proximity to the vehicle underbody.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,187,914 to Peras is indicative of such an approach. In order to effect positive movement of the carrier between the rearwardly projecting and lowered position of the carrier and a raised and forwardly projecting position, a rack and pinion gear system has been employed. Such a system is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,028,945 to Morrison.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide an improved compact spare tire carrier rack assembly for universal mounting to various sized automotive vehicles and in particular pickup trucks and the like which employ a simplified parallelogram support for the spare tire carrier rack and incorporate within that mount, a compact screw lift mechanism carried by the assembly on one of the laterally opposed mounting brackets which directly mounts the spare carrier rack assembly to the bottom of the vehicle frame member, shields the screw lift mechanism from excessive road dirt, which permits the screw lift mechanism to be adjustably positioned to insure direct access to the rotary screw by a conventional crank handle without the necessity of drilling holes within the bumper of the vehicle and which permits the spare tire carrier rack to maintain the spare tire horizontally and in close proximity to the vehicle underbody.